For all my strolling through the blogs…

Most of what is written is either rumor or deep partisanship and has nothing to do with fact.

I’ve read McCain’s history and his voting record, and it leaves a lot to be desired. He doesn’t appear to be a forward looking man, but rather one who looks back to the past and tries awfully hard to imprint the past on the future. The problem with that is the future is different from any past the U.S. has had. Certainly the statement is true, if one doesn’t learn from the past, one is likely to repeat the mistakes of the past. But that means understanding history and all that goes with it. It also means changing directions when necessary…a military concept.

I just don’t see McCain being willing to change direction from the past…from what no longer works. As a military officer and student of military history, McCain should know you change strategy to fit the realities of the day and the possibilities of the future. But he doesn’t seem able to let go of the past. His only acceptance of the future has been his nominee for VP, but even that decision was probably cynically based – and promoted by his Bush advisers – on electability. I seriously doubt, since he is opposed to equal pay for equal work, that his decision was based on a belief in equality.

We now are deeply embroiled in the worst fiscal fiasco since the Great Depression…while the rest of the world is giggling behind their hands, happy to see [neo-con] American Imperialism coming to an end, no matter how much it hurts their own economies.

So, okay, I’m going to talk like one of those hated “liberal” democrats. But I, too, have a deep stake in this country. My ancestors arrived on the Boston shores in 1630. My ancestors fought in all our major wars. An ancestor was decorated by Geo. Washington, himself. I grew up in the Air Force (SAC to be specific)…my dad was a flight engineer. My husband was a radio operator in Vietnam. The red, white and blue varily reeks in my blood.

Dad was a boy from Kansas City, MO, who left home to ride the rails during the Depression and got his GED much later in life while in the Air Force. Yet, he was one of smartest, most creative men I’ve ever met. He studied all his life, constantly choosing to improve his education. He taught me to think for myself, to read and learn everything I could, to not be taken in by speeches, and to not be led by the crowd. He abhorred “crowd think.”

So, in my dad’s honor, I have read everything I can find, listened to both sides, and still cannot find a reason to support McCain. For me, McCain does not, in any way, represent the future. He echoes the past.

Forget for a moment that McCain has the first female in Republican history as his running mate. Forget that her nomination was carefully targeted to appeal to suburban women and the religious right of her party. Just think about McCain.

If elected, he – and he alone – will be the next president. Is he the person you want running the financial, economic and international affairs of this country? Look at his record. Look at what he has said. Look at what he has written.

If Dad were still alive, he’d be spouting words I couldn’t even print…and Dad was certainly no liberal. He voted Republican all his life. But this Republican party today would make him sick. It denies everything he believed in, including its having been usurped by the religious right.

If he were still alive, he would have turned in his Republican membership card and – grumbling all the way – opted for a Democratic card. But then Dad believed in the Republican party of Lincoln and Eisenhower. Not the Republican party of Dobson or Tom DeLay.

So, having learned politics quite literally at the feet of my father, why should I vote for McCain?